Ah! Forever By My Side!
by vsiv1695
Summary: At the end of his life, Keiichi records his final conversations with Belldandy about their life together.
1. Ah! The last gift!

She was always by my side.

An account of the last days of the life of Keiichi Morisato.

Dedicated to our family, both mortal and devine, and to the Goddess Belldandy who made my life the happiest in all of history.

If you are reading this, it is because you know who Belldandy truly is. More than 60 years ago, I accidentally called the goddess help line and was granted one wish. My wish to have a goddess like Belldandy by my side forever was kind of meant as a joke, but when she granted me that wish she gave me the happiest life ever known by any moral.

I am now 88 years old, and I will not see 89. It is the end of a "normal human lifespan". My body is falling apart, I hurt all over and can no longer take care of myself. This normal human lifespan was a sort of wedding gift from the Almighty. Over sixty years of marriage to Belldandy came after that blessing,though to her this seems a much smaller amount of time than it does to me. She is now coming to terms with the idea that our life with her by my side forever will soon be over.

Back when we first met, I tricked her. It was one of the few times I ever wanted to be apart from her, and it was only to buy her a ring for Christmas. I secretly worked many hard jobs so that I could surprise her and she knew something was wrong but trusted me. Now as my life draws to a close, I am tricking her again. Every day I send her away for some time apart from me, I tell her that it is so that she can feel better for a while. She hates this, but I tell her to trust me. What she doesn't know is that I've been writing in this journal all the time she is away. I want to give her one more surprise when I am gone because I can see the pain she is in and I wonder how long a goddess like her grieves.

This journal is that surprise. It is a surprise for Belldandy, but also for all of our friends and children who truly know us. As we now spend all night going through our scrapbooks and talking about our memories, I am making this written account of our lives together. Most people have only heard about our first two years together, before we were even married. Each day I have the strength, I write a little more of what I can remember. One day I will stop writing forever. When that day comes, Urd knows the location of this journal and will give this final gift to Belldandy and to you.

I don't know what else to say.

Except, I love you Belldandy.


	2. Ah! Forever By My Side!

Yesterday was the first day of my life's final project. Maybe it seems silly to some of you, to think that after all my accomplishments and all I've been through that a simple scrapbook and journal are the last things I did with my time on Earth. For me, this was one of my most important and vital projects ever. To leave her with something she could always have with her, when I could no longer be with her.

I fought my body to get out of bed. I picked up the new scrapbook, placed it face down on the table in front of me, and waited on the chair. Belldandy would always know when I was hiding something from her, so I would pretend that the surprise is the things I pick to look at in the scrapbook each day. In this way, I think she will never suspect that the real surprise is this journal.

Urd's voice has always seemed loud to me, but this time she seemed a little louder as she stopped Belldandy just outside the front door

"How is he doing, Belle?"

Belldandy answered "I don't know. He is brave, and we are very emotional, and I feel like he is hiding something from me"

Urd replied sympathetically "Don't make too much of it Belle. We can't imagine what mortals are thinking at this time of their lives...besides, you know whatever it is, that he is only thinking of you. So don't get yourselves upset thinking about if the other one is upset! Call me if you need anything...actually, just make some reason up and call me tomorrow. I'll never forgive you if you don't"

"Oh, Urd" said the love of my life, as she sarted to open the door.

She was beautifull, she was always so very beautifull. I don't write this just because I know Belldandy will read it one day, I want to say this to you all. Every time Belldandy entered the room I was in, my heart raced and I saw her as beautifull.

I feel like I should mention about her appearance for those who haven't always been with us but will read this journal. The Belldandy you see now appears nearly the same age as when I first called the hotline. Clothing styles changed, hair styles changed changed, but her physical appearance was always basically the same. Godesses do age, but they age differently and Belldandy can appear to us as any age she wishes. Belldandy's age appeared mostly unchanged as I aged changed just like any human being.

I want you to know that this is not something I asked for or something she did to please me. In fact, there was a short time later in my career where we tried having her appear closer to my age for a while. The thing was, there was something fake about that. Her looking older actually made us both feel a little awkward, and when anyone not a mortal stopped by for a visit it was ever more so. It was like lie, because Belldandy never really changed much. My eyes are failing me now, but I'd say that she still wouldn't pass for anything over 30 to a stranger.

I could go on and on here about Belldandy's beauty in this journal. How sometimes when I can't move because it hurts too much, thats what I think about. Once the magic block that kept us apart for our first years together was removed, my desire never changed until I was so old my body couldn't handle it anymore. Which, with Urd's help, was well past the normal age. How much I wish my eyes worked better today just to see her more clearly! Yet, her image never leaves my mind. I would like to write for hours like this, but I I want everybody to be comfortable reading it!

Yes, she was beautiful as she opened the door, but when she saw me in the chair instead of the bed...well, I know that look! I think my first good look at it was when Urd suggested we could lose a motorcycle race. I actually think it's very subtle, given that it means a first class goddess is getting angry!

"Keiichi, why aren't you in bed?" she asked simply

I had prepared for this moment, or so I thought "I was thinking about something. Belldandy, what do you suppose it will be like when..."

"Oh, Keiichi!" her words overflowed with compassion as her heart did the same. She took my hand and soon had her face close to mine as she gently touched me "You don't have to be afriad. I'm forbidden to tell you, but I promise you don't have to be afraid of anything. It will be fine, you'll see. You are going to see Megumi soon, and our son, and my father's face. He is so fond of you Keiichi. Also, our agreement will still br valid and our love still be a part of you, even more in a way, and..."

I reached for her and said "I meant what do you suppose it will be like for you."

Belldandy's head went back a minute, and as she looked into my eyes I saw the shape her face takes when something surprises her. Immediately, the tears started "Oh Keiichi! Even now, do you only think of my happiness?" She was then on me, wrapping her arms around me as she started to wail.

To know Belldandy is to know her tears. I once heard it said that men should not trust women they see crying too much. I think they must have known people like Sayoko, but Belldandy is very different. Her tears are never a tool or a weapon or self pity, they are compassion, empathy, and strength. The tears are almost always for someone else, and even when they are for her own pain it is because she chooses hurt over anger. Her beauty, singing, and even her cooking are divine as one might expect from a goddess; but her tears are something even more, a thing that sets her apart from any other. Those tears describe her more perfectly than any mortal words ever could.

I held her for a long time after that, or was she holding me?

I didn't get any answer to the question of what it would be like for her, so I focused on my primary task. "Belldandy, I have a surprise for you. I made a scrapbook for us, and I want us to spend time together talking about our memories."

She peered back at the book, and again buried her head into my chest as the tears again increased. My strength was failing already, and this wasn't making it any easier. I tried to lean and get one arm off of her to turn the book over so she could see the front cover. She felt it, not letting go of my neck as she turned her head sideways just enough to read the scrapbook's title:

Forever By My Side

"Keiichi!" She cried, almost yelling through a face wet with tears "I don't want it to end! I would give anything! Why does it have to be so?"

Those were the last words we said that night. The intensity with which we held each other far surpassing either of our ability to speak. I wondered if all that emotion would be what would end up killing me. I kind of wanted it to in a way, even though we hadn't looked at a single page of the scrapbook yet. If only I could die in her arms like this, or with my head on her lap.

I didn't die last night though, because if I did I wouldn't be able to write this.


	3. Ah! Insturctions for a grieving goddess

Well, we finally got her out of the house for a minute! This whole thing has not been working out the way I planned. I've been so focused on the making this journal a surprise for her that I didn't realize how hard it would be actually writing it. I am torn between giving her this last gift and just being with her while I still can. This is very hard. Urd is outside the door now, criticizing Belldandy and buying me time for this important note.

There are a lot of things about our lives together I could record in this journal, but Belldandy could explain all those things too. The most important thing is take take care of Belldandy.

Please read this closely, this is the most important part of what I am writing to you, the thing only I can tell you. Belldandy is overwhelming but does need care. It's simple but not easy, and you have to have faith.

Belldandy is everything she appears to be. Every little bit of it. She's the same even when she's just with me or even when she's just in her own head. She's that kind, she's that compassionate, she's that sensitive, she cares that much. I swear that this is true. It is so true that it scares me, because she's the only goddess like that and wonder what it means.

Along with this, Belldandy also feels pain very deeply. As an example, before she ever met me she had a tramautic incident with her former teacher named Celestin. It was decided that she should be made to forget the incident, and part of the reason was for her own good. It's that intense for her. If you are reading this journal, you know that Belldandy almost never turns hurt to anger, that she never becomes dark or brooding, she never even complains. It's not because she's not hurting, trust me. Her life with me brought her through a lot of tragedy, and we had two major tragedies in our lives together. I have been with her while she was grieving, and while her grief is pure it's intensity is awesome.

Reach out to her. I know what you are immediately thinking, that this will cause her to cry. YES, exactly that. I want you to make her cry. Show her every small kindness you can think of. Hug her, tell her you love her, cook a meal for her even if it's not very good. Clean the house even though you don't think it needs it. Do these things even if you are in a room with a thousand other people doing them and she is drenched in her own tears. In whatever way you can think to, no matter how ridiculous it seems, give her love. That love will reach her, it always does.

If you are worried that this will cause you to cry also, then you still don't understand: I beg you to cry with her. Yes it will make her cry more. You will leave physically and emotionally exhausted, but it is what she needs and somehow she never tires of this. I experienced it when we lost her sister, and again when we lost our son decades later.

It's hard to believe I know, but just have faith:

I have never written so fast in my life, I hope you can read it. I have to put the journal away now.


	4. Ah! I Dream of Keiichi!

There had been an odd tension in our home for days now. Both Belldandy and I are holding secrets from each other: Belldandy knows what the afterlife is like but can't tell me; I know about this journal but won't tell her. Both of us know each other well enough that we know we are holding back something, both of us trust the other, and niether of us is willing to give up our secrets. We both know we are OK, but it really isn't how we thought our last days would go. The scrapbook has been a part of the problem too, because every time we started talking about it we felt that we were saying goodbye. Then our emotional heaviness would cause us to not quite be ourselves.

It was Urd who finally broke the tension. She reminded us that our devotion and love for one another was one of the things people thought of when they thought of us, but the other was our fun and laughter. As she explained "You know you can't change this, so you might as well have fun together while you still can." Then she crossed her arms, blinked, and changed her clothes into Jeannie. Not a genie, Jeannie. She continued her peformance with dancing and the blinking and so on, trying harder for a laugh. Urd would not be denied, and eventually she won us over. Our tensions began to melt in laughter.

Belldandy cut loose with her own performance after a while. Blinking and changing her clothes into the Jeannie outfit, and we laughed more. Soon, it felt like we were laughing at everything. Our whole life together, all of it. From Banpei and Belldandy being drunk on soda on down through all the years. We two were still laughing when Urd left. The smiles we gave each other were the most simple and sincere smiles we had for each other since we realized my time was coming.

"I love you." I said, feeling those words to be the natural response. It was sweet for a second, but then we were cracking up once more as we both remembered me saying "I love you" on the roof of the temple.

That was how Urd set us free to really enjoy our last days together, and I think it will last. It's also the first story I want to share in this journal

–

It was nearing the end of our second year together, just after Celestin. This was a good time for us. Except for the trouble with a monster who wanted to eat angels, it was quiet. We spent time on the beach. We visited an amusement park. I even helped make a wish come true.

Urd liked to watch video tapes. I suppose I better explain that. Video tapes were the first way we recorded programs from the television. Of course, some of you are also too young to know what television was. So let's just say it was the first way of viewing video content and that it was very hard to get video content back in that day.

Anyway, Urd loved watching these things, and one day she brought in a Japanese dub of an American television program called "I Dream of Jeannie." She called us all in to watch the program with her, something she almost never did. So I sat with Belldandy and Urd and Skuld and watched it.

It's a story about an American astronaut who found a genie's bottle and a female genie came out and started to grant him wishes. The genie's name was a pun on the English word for genie "Jeannie". It was a romantic comedy, and she was constantly causing awkward things to happen to the astronaut because of her magic. She was subservient to the astronaut and kept calling him "master". It was making me more than a little uncomfortable, because I didn't know how the three sisters would react to something that almost seemed like it was making fun of them in a very personal way.

At the end of a couple of episodes Urd slowly turned around and looked straight back at me and said "What do you think of that, Keiichi?"

My hand naturally raised to my throat, and I didn't know what to say "Ummm"

"Because I think it's the funniest thing I've ever seen!" she said, laughing hysterically at my reaction to her.

The rest was kind of a blur. While I was just being relieved that I didn't get in major trouble, the sisters were laughing and changing their clothes to look like Jeannie and started calling me "master" and making all kinds of silly things happen all over the temple. They kept trying to do for real the things the program was doing with cheap effects. I remember them trying to turn things upside down a lot. Skuld ended up making her part of the temple into a scale model of the inside of Jeannie's bottle. Urd was guzzling saki and watching the television and trying some of the things she saw them do with cheap effects. Belldandy was cooking up shebabs and lentil soup. I think this was the loudest we ever got at the temple that didn't involve a fight. Everybody was happy.

After dinner, it kind of kept going. Urd and Belldandy started telling Skuld and I stories about different wish-granting goddesses they knew and of Arabic heroes from folklore. Finally, I saw Urd looking at Belldandy and I in a way I hadn't seen for quite a while. Urd got up, added a little satin to her costume, put on some music, and starting doing a slow dance. "Come on Bell!" she added after a while.

When I saw Belldandy dancing that way, it was obvious what Urd was really up to. Watching Belldandy dance that was was so enticing, mysterious, sensual, seductive. The more I noticed, the more Belldandy changed it. Soon Belldandy was clearly performing only for me and I was getting turned on.

Skuld eventually noticed what was happening, and I thought she would make a scene. She looked like she was thinking about it, but she didn't. For the first time, I noticed her hold back. I think after Celestin, Skuld had finally fully made peace with my relatiionship with Belldandy. She clearly wasn't comfortable, but she never even said a word.

Urd said "Come on Skuld, I think it's time I told you something about the magic that really makes wishes come true." and the two left us alone.

Then I was alone with a slow dancing Belldandy in a room lit by candles, smelling of jasmine. We both wanted each other, and we both knew it. We had never been left alone to a more romantic scene that that before. We danced and kissed and held each other close all night.

–

Despite how it sounds, that was not yet our "first time" Urd had been trying to get us to become more physical for almost the full two years, and it was at the point where even we were wondering why it hadn't happened yet.

It turns out that something magical had been blocking me from the very beginning. Fortunately, that block was soon destroyed. Unfortunately, it came at a very high cost.


	5. Ah! The Mansion outside time and space

We are finally ourselves again. Able to laugh together, able to talk, able to love. Now, we are saying our goodbyes on our terms. It is kind of like our first two years in that even though I am suffering physically, I am mostly unaware of my suffering because she is with me.

We are saying almost everything we want to each other now, but there are still things that we can't talk about. It's always been that way actually. Most of these have been things she knows that she cannot tell me. I know it bothers her too, how I can just give her and tell her everything but she is forbidden to do the same to me.

For example, the holographic principle. I've worked and taught in Engineering for decades now and have learned about quantum gravity and how our universe might actually be a hologram of sorts. I have studied this topic as a hobby and read interesting reports. What I have seen is so much more evident though: Belldandy transports herself through mirrors, Urd travels through televisions, and Peorth travels through lenses. Just knowing that lets me know there is something to our universe actually being a hologram. No matter how interesting it is, I can't ask Belldandy. She can't tell me more because the Almighty has decidednot to let mortals know about this. There are times when I have not been able to help myself and told her all about something interesting I was reading. She can only smile, and I never know why.

I mention this because the holographic principle is related to something we have always called "year three". That being the period of time starting when I was unexpectedly snatched into another reality and ending with our wedding and the Almighty's blessing. Many things changed for us then. I changed and grew up a bit too. There was great danger, the full maturity of our love, and the worst tragedy of our lives.

The day started quietly. Belldandy was doing the laundry and singing and I was just listening to it as I looked at the grounds by our temple. She was so happy then. The next minute, I woke up in a bed not my own in a strange place. I got up from the bed and naturally starting looking for Belldandy.

I saw no one I knew as I rushed through the place. Nothing but strangers everywhere in this big house. Some laughed, some looked sympathetic, and others just stared blankly. One of the statues starting moving and slowly told me "Welcome sir, please do not be alarmed." I thought about trying to talk to it, but then caught the smell of food cooking. My thought was that if Belldandy woke up in a strange place the first thing she would do if she felt good will there might be pass the time cooking for them. I know this was foolish now, but it seemed right at the time. I followed the scent that didn't even smell like Belldandy's cooking all the way to the kitchen. In my own defense, the food was Japanese cooking. Just not Belldandy's cooking. Not at all.

The people I met there were friendly, but they were all fighters. Not soldiers, but a collection of different people with different skills. They took some time to calm me down and gave me a little bit of food. They had not seen my goddess at all, but were interested when the topic came up. They were very interested in stories. Each others, those of other people, and mine. Their stories were all really exciting. When I told me story, they were surprised to find out that I never fought much and that my goddess loved to stay at home and cook food.

We had about an hour to talk, and then a sound and a general movement within the mansion. The two men I was eating with told me to come with them to the meeting to meet Azumi. Feeling certain that Belldandy would be there if she was anywhere in the mansion at all, I went along with them.

It was a planning meeting. Azumi intended to send all of us to go to a world and free it from the control of somebody named Masuyo the collector. I felt very far out of place, and eventually cut in to introduce myself, feeling that maybe they had taken me when they meant to take Belldandy. Initially, Azumi would not address this. Instead, she handed me a ring with an enchantment and told me to use it on the mission.

Some of you may know that I have hosted angels before, but very few people know about the time in my life when I actually had powers of my own. They were really just the powers of the ring, but for a little while I was actually something like the goddesses. The ring let me kind of absorb magic and then use it myself. I didn't have any idea what to do with it most of the time, so I mostly did things that I saw Belldandy and Urd do. I learned more as I went, but never got the hang of what to use when.

That was the beginng of year three. In just a few minutes, my whole life changed. Instead of living in the temple with Belldandy, I was out adventuring in other world with friends but without her for a while. I lived a couple months like that.

And that is one of the pictures we have but never talk about, the mansion outside of time and space where I learned more than a mortal should know about reality. I still don't have the answers. Sometimes I think there might even be another Keiichi and Belldandy. I hope there is. I hope they found each other too, and that in their case they just lived happily ever after and didn't have to go through year three. Because that way when they got married, Belldandy's younger sister would still be with them. Oh! My goddess would be so happy if only that could have happened for us.


End file.
